Survival of the Fittest
by Namilaa
Summary: AU. When is comes to love and war, Kairi consistently chooses the moral pathway due south. With her long-awaited college formal just around the corner, she has to choose a date among a diverse group of boys: the hot bartender, the goofy frat boy, the silent popular guy, and the sullen soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. This is the Formal Games, and Kairi is determined to come out on top. SK


After a long hiatus, I AM BACK AND AS BORED AS EVER. Now that I have a job, I find much more reason to quench my boredom and for some reason this is going to be my channel. Please keep in mind that there may be some topics and actions that not all agree with. There will be swearing, drinking, and regular bad decisions. Please bare with me. As a college student, this is what I see around me, so this is what I write. The plot and characters actually directly mirror my spring semester, but as always, please remember that this is still fiction, and things are both exaggerated and down played. Just because Kairi does something doesn't mean I did it, and that goes along with all the characters. That is my business and this is how I am expressing it. Otherwise, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I am only doing this once. I do not own the Kingdom Hearts franchise or any of its characters. PLEASE SEE ABOVE NOTE ABOUT MATURE CONTENT.

* * *

Survival of the Fittest

by: namilaa

Chapter One

* * *

It is my first time working alone and I feel rather suffocated.

Between the incessant Asian string music, my ever-present partially blind boss, a queer chronic impulse to look over my left shoulder, and the constant ringing of the restaurant telephone, I feel a little in over my head. I don't think I ever was properly trained, what with the cooking fan breaking on my first training day and then a second manager quitting two weeks after the first one did on my next, so I was never a first priority for the Powers That Be. They were probably regretting my negligent training right about now, because I have just entered the entirely wrong take out order for the impatient high-strung blond MILF standing in front of me, racking that up to a grand total of three errors since I arrived just two hours ago.

To be fair, I can't blame it all on them. I'm clearly not very good at this job. When I asked for someone's number to type into the take out order, I entered it wrong; when I jotted down a reservation, I forgot to ask their number. It went on like so. This is a hard fact to accept because I am not used to being bad at things. When I interviewed, I sold them on the idea that I was a fast learner and a computer connoisseur. They ate up my resume propaganda like a crude, starved cat blinded by my milky smile. Indeed, my only redeeming qualities at this point are my gracious greetings and flawless farewells to costumers who were too busy staring at my boobs anyway. I am consistently self-conscious about them whenever I seat costumers because I have to conspicuously bend forward to clear away any extra places on the very low tables. The trick, I'm finding, is to stand on the man's side of the table because nine out of ten times their wives don't sneak quickie glances at my tits from across the table. If it's an after-work dinner with a gang of suits I'm fucked.

This is a lot for one girl to handle. Perhaps I use my Arts major as a scapegoat for my mathematical shortcomings, but the quantity of scenarios I handle at one time is overwhelming. Not to mention the new manager has no idea what he is doing either. I ask him a question and he just shrugs. Sweet.

There are, however, two positive aspects to this job. Well, three if you include tips and eleven dollar an hour wages. The first being that it is a good distraction from not only my mounting college coursework but also from the family drama back home. My aunt, and godmother, has breast cancer. She has been diagnosed for almost a year and has already gone through her first rounds of radiation, but her recent scans revealed new cancerous sections. The x-rays looked like a botched Christmas tree decoration. She lit up in places beyond her breasts, complicating the future procedure, the bulb on her hip like an astray ornament.

Of course I found this all out last night, and it has not left my mind since. Her second round of chemo is scheduled for the beginning of the summer, a mere three weeks away. My family of course was riotous that she couldn't get treatment sooner. But such is the luck of the cancer stricken, I guess.

The second perk to working would be Riku the twenty seven year old hot bartender. If I peek over my left shoulder, through the glass chandelier that resembles thin icicle prison bars, I could see the ripples in his biceps as he shakes the martini mixer with controlled precision. We make eye contact often, probably too often for it not to be embarrassing on my part, but I use the chandelier as a scapegoat for any embarrassment. I am able to convince myself, irrationally of course, that he cannot see me well from that side of the room through the chandelier, which is ridiculous because the glass does not distort on one side and not the other. The fine chandelier is my awkward prison.

The blonde mom is still standing in front of the counter waiting for her order to be done and all I can do is stand behind the counter hoping that, mercy upon mercies, her vegetable pad thai and kung pao chicken is the first order in. My manager wanders back to my side of the counter and stands there with his arms crossed. It's his way of projecting the role as the person who he knows what he is doing. It is painfully transparent.

I seat three new customers and then check on the take out in the back. To my relief it is boxed and ready to be bagged. Paranoia beckons me to look over my other shoulder, and from this different angle across the restaurant, I make eye contact with Riku again. He smiles dashingly. I contort a weird no-toothed smile that I loathe and painfully look away. Damnit! Caught off guard again!

I violently staple the receipt to the bag and head back to the front counter. I hand the order to the woman who grabs it and leaves the restaurant with no tip. Bitch.

Barely ten minutes pass, and maybe I'm crazy but I feel Riku staring at the back of my head again. If I turn around will we make eye contact again? If we make eye contact that just means that he was looking at me first, right? That's how eye contact works? Someone has to be the first person to look, after all, and so far it hasn't really been me.

I take a moment to reflect on my love life as I approach this crossroad of morality.

My kind-of-sort-of-not-really-boyfriend is also kind of a complete dud. Somehow, I managed to find someone who is even less emotional and romantic than I am. And while this is pretty great for a Young Wild and Free college student, it is also painfully frustrating. Hayner and I have been hooking up since November and not a peep about feelings or the Future has been uttered. Summer is almost here and I have no idea what to do with this kid. Not to mention there is formal to deal with.

I grimace. _Formal._

Much like a prom, my sorority rents out a venue in the city, one that is preferably lenient on fake IDs. We basically wreck the place, drink a lot, eat a lot, and ruin our pretty hair and our pretty dresses that we toiled over for two hours beforehand. The only difference between prom and formal is that prom is an annual occasion with awkward dresses and premature social rivalry because of the very fact that there is only one. For formal, every sorority and fraternity and sports team has their own and usually on different nights, so most people usually get invited as a date to more than one. That is, if boys like you. If you are plain Jane you go your formal and that's as far as you fucking get. Going to only your own formal is like only getting to second base. The Formal Games, as we nickname this race to social dominance, is game of landmines and pitfalls. Such is the treacherous life of college Greek life.

Me? I've got my sights set on getting Terra to ask me to Sig Chi formal. If second base is your own formal, then home base is Sig Chi formal. It's the god damned grand slam. Being in the "coolest", i.e. douchiest, fraternity on campus, most girls want to get invited. I ruined my chances getting asked by a different boy in the same frat last semester by a strange turn of events concerning a passed out, costumed freshman girl and a naked Egyptian fleeing across campus but that is a separate story for separate time. Mind you I don't particularly care about rankings within Greek life; in fact, Hayner is in one of the "least cool" fraternities, Beta Delta, but I like to claim that his car and the fact that he is a Senior makes up for it. No, Terra was a strange sort that differed from the raging dickweeds that his fraternity is keenly labeled as. Quiet and unassuming, he is the perfect target. I am already half way there. We've made out twice already and I'm hoping that a third will land a formal invitation. Hayner, bless him, will have to go.

I sigh. I feel a sudden tenderness toward the sulky blonde. I have had a crush on him since freshman year, so when we started hanging out in November I was ecstatic. However as the next semester wore on, and as I took him to my two other sorority functions as a date, the glamor of the crush wore away. And now, here I am: manipulating my way into Sig Chi formal, contemplating the proper break-up protocol, and now secretly plotting to seduce the hot bartender.

I look around. My manager and my boss are nowhere on the scene. There are no take out orders waiting to be made. My love-life contemplation has concluded. I choose the moral pathway due south. I head to the bar.

I avoid eye contact until I make my way behind the bar, give him a sideways dazzling smile, and ask if I can "steal" a glass of water from him.

He smirks and I can't help but take note of his eyes, "Go right ahead, princess. Glasses are next to the sink." He walks toward me and reaches for a bottle of liquor behind me. His cologne is spiking my senses.

Princess? I can feed into that. I look at him, feigning embarrassment, "How do I do this again?"

Riku knowingly reaches for the nozzle connected to the drink hose. He hands it to me, standing so close that his arm is against mine, and points to the button clearly marked "WATER" among several others. "Is this what you are looking for, Hellen Keller?"

I feign rolling my eyes, "Ooh, _that's _how I do it. Gotcha. You see I was anticipating a sort of well pumping contraption. I grew up in the early 20th century, you know. Clearly I was wrong. Sorry for the trouble. I'll be out of your way soon."

"No rush." He takes a strand of my auburn hair and gives it a little flirtatious tug. My ego is doing the Macarena.

I see my manager peering through the chandelier. I note that from here, Riku can see me perfectly when I am behind the front counter, probably better than I can see him. Time to abort mission. I give one last loaded look toward Riku, who returns it with equal heat, and then head toward the front counter. I jingle my glass of ice water at my manager. See, I'm saying, just getting some water. My boss, an old, very short Asian lady holding the menu an inch away from her nose stands there clueless to our interaction.

"Thirsty today, Kairi?" My manager asks in a deadpan voice. Next to him, my boss is now mumbling in a rapid hybrid of Chinese and English about a typo she made, spelling "Spicy Scallop Maki" as "Spicy Swallow Maki" instead. We ignore her.

"You have no idea."

* * *

Once I'm back on campus I head straight to Selphie and Olette's dorm room. Being two of the most dramatic friends I have, they sent me a text labeled "SOS". While I know it is no emergency, I head to their room anyway. I punch in the code to enter their room and I am greeted by the usual calamity. I've never actually seen their room clean before and tonight was no different. Wardrobe doors are wide open, dresses and sweatshirts alike litter the dusty rug, Selphie's nail polish collection like an Easter egg hunt around the room, and the ever-present smell of lingering food wrinkles my nose. Where they lack in cleanliness they make up in hyper activity. They are both in their beds and when I enter their heads pop up simultaneously.

My sorority always jokes that, where there is an Olette, there is a Selphie. The girls are inseparable and two of the best people I know at this school.

"_KAIIIIIIIIII-_RIIIIIIII!"

"I received a panic text?" I say as I leap into Selphie's bed. She immediately starts rolling all over me like a rolling pin giggling with joy.

Olette is the one who responds, "We're setting you up!"

I pause. Oh no. The dreaded fraternity function set up. Things like this can only go one of two ways: either you're awkward with your date or you're throbbing to make out with him. There is a half hour grace period during the bus ride to the function that is tell tale indication which way it's gonna go. There is nothing like sharing a bus seat with someone you've never met for half an hour. If you hit it off, its great, if not, you'll be playing hide and seek all night. It's a 50/50 chance and the biggest gamble in the Formal Games. Getting set up can be useful to get a group of friends to the same function. As with the rest of the Formal Games, it's all strategy.

"May I ask to _where_ and with _who_?"

Selphie is still rolling back and forth across me and her bed, "To Delta Omega's daytime luau! All of us are going so now you are too!"

Delta Omega. A perfectly respectable frat with kids who walk the tightrope between being loveably weird and exceptionally suave.

"Luau? Will we dance around a fire and chant indigenous war songs?"

"No but there will be a roasted pig and three kegs."

"SOLD." I exclaim. Did I mention that Delta Omega are also known to come from disgustingly wealthy families? "With whom am I being set up with exactly?"

Olette breaks out a grin, "Sora Rofratt." I blink. I have no idea who this kid is. They both look at me waiting for some kind of reaction. Clearly I should know who this boy is.

"Um…who?"

Selphie sits up so quickly it gives me whiplash. She grabs my shoulders and starts shaking me. "Kairi! He went to spring break with us, remember? He was with the Juniors in the other hotel? Good looking? Lanky? Pointy hair?"

I stare at her blankly. In the foggy blackout mist that my soring break was, I dimly remember a boy on the balcony of our hotel room. We went to the southern islands for a spring break get away and league of Delta Omegas seemed to follow us there. Which was nice because I hadn't known many of them at that point, but had gained a new appreciation for them by the end.

"I faintly remember the face."

"Well get your party pants on because we're going to get tiki-smashed!"

I leave their room eventually and ponder my present situation. Currently, I have four boys on my plate: Hayner the old, Riku the sexy, Terra the target, and Sora the unknown. Talk about an active love life. I finally enter my room to see Yuffie, my best friend and roommate, putting on makeup.

I grin. Well, looks like I'm going out. Gotta stay on target. I have a game plan and it's going to take some weeding out to decipher what my next move is. And a night out is a perfect opportunity. I hate to be so Darwinian when it comes to the Formal Games, but it's the survival of the fittest, and damnit if I don't come out on top.

Let's see whom I target tonight.


End file.
